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When Stella wakes again, the morning is bright, her head throbbing against the pillow.
There’s the sound of sheets shifting against skin, someone swinging their legs over the side of the bed: Beatrix.
She opens her eyes to see Beatrix’s back is turned, her head lowered, her hands braced tightly against the mattress.
Stella’s voice is weak and scratchy, throat dry from the hangover. “Bea,” she whispers.
Beatrix turns to look at her, eyes half-clouded with sleep. She smiles tiredly, her eyelids drooped half-shut. “You look like shit,” Beatrix whispers back.
Stella laughs. She knows it. She feels it.
Beatrix stands up, heads to the armchair where she’d folded her clothes. With her back turned, she pulls off the camisole and drops it to the floor. She reaches into a pocket of the skirt she’d worn the night before, takes out a hairband and gathers her hair into a messy bun.
Stella, through her headache delirium, hugs the duvet up to her neck and watches as if Beatrix were a silent film on a Sunday morning. Her eyes trace the freckles on her back, the way her shoulder blades shift and slide under her skin. She watches with fascination when Beatrix clips her bra behind her back – psychopathic genius, she sleepily thinks – and feels disappointment sliver through her when Beatrix pulls the shirt over her head, hiding her back from view.
Then she shimmies the pyjama shorts down her legs, dropping those next to the camisole. Next, she picks up her tights and sits in the armchair, focused on slipping the material over her legs, then slips on her skirt and buttons them up.
As Stella watches, she unconsciously stretches her legs out onto the opposite side of the bed, feeling the warm imprint from Beatrix’s ghost.
“It’s almost eleven o’clock. We’ve missed the first two periods,” Beatrix says.
She pulls on her boots, gathers her jacket over her arm, and grabs the empty whiskey bottle. Then she looks over to where Stella is curled up under the covers and smiles, a rare softness pulling at her cheeks.
“Try not to stay in bed all day, okay?” Beatrix teases.
Stella’s stomach rolls, and whether it’s from the alcohol or because the girl is leaving, she doesn’t know.
“Where’re you going?” Stella asks.
With every step Beatrix takes towards the door, Stella can feel her heart shrinking behind her ribs. It’s probably the hangover making everything worse, but it makes her want to cry like a little kid. She thinks stupidly of all those times when her mother wouldn’t tuck her in at night, too cold and too busy doing something else.
Spoiled princess. Alcoholic in the making. That’s Stella.
“My room. I need to shower,” Beatrix explains. She stops at the door of the suite, throwing one last look over her shoulder.
Stella feels her gaze like a pin-prick to the heart. Pain leaks like blood around the muscle, as she wishes the girl would just stay. Just stay and get back into bed and help soothe the whiskey pounding in her brain.
“See you later – maybe,” Beatrix adds as a caveat, noting the way Stella seemingly has no intention of moving.
Then Beatrix is gone, just like that, and Stella’s left curled up in bed, all alone, wondering if she usually feels this forlorn when she’s by herself, or if the previous night spent with Beatrix has just made the contrast too big for her to ignore.
She gets up at midday, forcing herself into the bathroom. She drinks three glasses of water, somehow doesn’t throw up, then climbs into the shower to wash the alcohol sweat from her body. The hot steam makes her feel even more tired, but it improves her mood greatly to no longer smell the whiskey fumes on her skin.
She brushes her teeth, cursing the drunken white flecks on the mirror from the night before. She thinks about seeing Beatrix’s eyes in the mirror – oh, she’d never really seen the appeal of brown eyes before: awfully common, she’d used to say.
But Beatrix’s eyes aren’t common at all.
She spits her toothpaste into the sink, turns the tap and watches the froth slip down the drain.
She gets the appeal now.
She makes it into the cafeteria for lunchtime. The lunch lady looks her up and down like she’s never seen Stella look worse, and Stella can’t blame her for thinking it. Today is definitely not one of her better days.
Goodness, imagine if her mother could see her now. She’d be in the first car back to Solaria before she'd even have a chance to blink.
She takes her food out into the courtyard and heads to an alcove in the side, a small hideaway of paradise in the stone bricks. She crosses her legs up, blocking the empty space beside her. The sandwich is plain, so hopefully she’ll be able to keep it down.
Good grief, her head feels awful, but it’s not as bad as it was first thing this morning. She keeps taking steady sips of water, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, in the hopes that it’ll subside.
“Wearing sunglasses in October is really not very subtle, FYI.”
Stella’s heart somersaults against her will. Water misses her mouth, dribbling down her chin, and her cheeks flame scarlet when Beatrix grabs her ankles and forces her feet backwards, making room for her to perch on the other side of the alcove.
“I’m surprised to see you up. I thought you were going to stay in bed all day,” Beatrix says.
Beatrix looks a sight better than she does. Her hair flows loose and wavy around her shoulders, large gold hoops in her ears, her mascara and eyeliner dark and perfect.
It’s almost embarrassing, the contrast between the two of them. Stella shrinks down into her hoodie – a powder blue one which she’d stolen from Sky a couple of summers ago – and hopes nobody is interested in taking photographs of the Solarian princess today.
“I wanted to,” Stella tells her, stomach swooping horribly low when Beatrix's nose crinkles in amusement, the lines around her eyes folding like layers in a red velvet cake.
She’s fucked. Completely fucked.
And her head hurts, and there’s a good chance she may still be sick. What a horrible day.
“I don’t think you’ll make it through the afternoon. You’ll probably projectile vomit over the teacher’s shoes,” Beatrix drawls, gaze raking across Stella’s pale complexion.
But then she leans in, her perfume reminding Stella of tangerines at Christmas, grinning like the devil. “So I think you ought to come with me. I’ve got a better idea.”
When Stella remains uncertain at the bottom of the tree, Beatrix calls down from the branches, her voice echoing and taunting, "Don’t tell me you’re scared, Stella.”
Stella eyes up the branches with unease, mapping in her mind the route Beatrix had just taken.
She can do this. She can totally do this.
Bracing her foot against the base, she reaches up to grab the lowest hanging branch. Then she forces her mind to clear, focusing only on the task at hand. She mirrors Beatrix step for step, placing her feet on the same branches in the same spots, reaching up to grab at the same grooves in the bark.
“So the princess can climb,” Beatrix jibes when Stella reaches her.
Stella resists the urge to look down. Instead, she focuses on the shit-eating grin on Beatrix’s face, the girl casually lounging between a fork in the tree branches.
“You come up here a lot?” Stella asks.
It’s only after she says it that she hears how much it sounds like a pick-up line: she panics about this briefly, and so she only catches the second-half of Beatrix’s answer.
“– nice place to hang when I don’t feel like breathing the same air as the cretins in this school.”
Stella laughs. She settles back against the tree trunk, slowly dropping her legs either side of the branch, adjusting until she feels secure.
“You look like you’re going to wet yourself,” Beatrix snickers.
“Shut up,” Stella glares.
Beatrix laughs. She shifts to look through the gap of space above her head towards the training fields. They’re not that far into the woods, only a dozen or so feet, and so they have a pretty good view of the Specialists out training.
Stella peers through the leaves, craning her neck until she finds a clear spot. Despite the distance, she recognises Sky immediately. She knows the way he holds himself, has no issue distinguishing him amongst the other boys dressed in the same form-fitting uniforms.
“Do you miss him?” Beatrix asks.
The question takes a second to sink in, mostly because Stella finds herself distracted by the image of Beatrix pulling out a small silver flask.
“Is that alcohol?” Stella asks.
“What’s with the judgemental tone? Have you decided to quit after last night?”
“No. But we’re in a tree.”
“Fantastically observed, Stel, well done.”
“No, I mean – Bea,” Stella hisses, as Beatrix unscrews the flask and takes a sip. “Are you crazy? What if you fall?”
“One sip isn’t going to make me lose my bearings.” Beatrix rolls her eyes. “Here, have some,” she says, holding out the flask. “It’ll help with your hangover. As has already been established, you look awful.”
Stella knows it’s a horrible idea even as she takes the flask. She knows she’s acting recklessly when she takes the drink to her lips.
But god, the vodka tastes like a promising cure to all of her problems.
Huh. Maybe she does have a problem.
“You didn’t answer,” Beatrix pushes.
“Answer what?”
“If you miss him. Sky,” Beatrix clarifies. “That looks like a guy’s hoodie to me. Please don’t tell me you’re still stalking him.”
Stella scoffs, the flask still lingering at her lips. “I’m not insane. I can’t turn invisible anymore. He’d catch me within the hour.”
“Maybe not. He’s not particularly bright.”
“Bea.” Stella shakes her head. “You don’t have to talk badly about him to make me feel better.”
Beatrix accepts the flask back, something in her expression letting Stella know that she hadn’t done a very good job of hiding her reluctance to relinquish it.
“I wasn't. I was just insulting him,” Beatrix corrects.
“Oh.” Stella pauses for a moment to wonder how she feels about that, but she thinks the instinctive, amused grin on her face already says it all. “Right. I probably should’ve figured that out.”
“Probably,” Beatrix echoes, a smile toying at her lips.
They lounge around in a comfortable quiet for a while, listening to the soft chirping of birds in the trees nearby. Stella leans back against the trunk and closes her eyes, her hangover making it easy for her to fall into a half-slumber.
Her senses slow, her breathing begins to even out. She hears occasional yells from the training fields, the breeze rustling the tree leaves, the soft scurrying of squirrels across branches.
Beatrix must trust her if she brought her up here. Stella finds herself unconsciously smiling at that. It feels like being back on the school playground, a warm bubbling in her chest, because she’s the one who’s been entrusted with her friend’s secrets.
And oh, wow, is Beatrix her best friend? She might be, in all honesty. She’s the only person that she’s confided in about the gemstone in her back, the only person who she truly complains to her mother about.
It’d been Sky, once upon a time. Back when they were together. Back before Stella’s head had become too crowded and messy and she’d broken his heart because he was too nice and too understanding and all she wanted to do was put glass between her teeth, to scrape her bare hands against a wall, to find a way to get the pain out of her head and into the open air.
“I don’t miss him,” Stella says, still with her eyes closed. Her voice is smooth and slow like thick honey dripping off a spoon.
“Sky?”
“Mmm.” Stella hums.
“God, don’t fall asleep. Knowing me you’ll break your neck and I’ll get blamed for the murder.”
Stella laughs, the edge of sleep slowly retreating from her mind. She forces her eyes to open, her gaze shaky and blurry before it focuses on Beatrix’s frown: the girl’s body is curled slightly forward as if about to spring forth and stop Stella tumbling to the ground.
Stella laughs again.
Beatrix’s eyes narrow like a cat, her lips thinning into a line. “It wouldn’t be funny.”
“Oh, it definitely would be,” Stella disagrees, her heart light and easy. “I’m tempted to fall just to spite you now.”
Beatrix scoffs, taking the flask to her lips. She takes her sweet time screwing the flask lid back on. Then she finally looks up, her mouth curling in mischief.
“You wouldn’t. You like me too much,” Beatrix confidently declares.
And Stella finds herself knocked off-kilter, a rose-blush racing across her cheeks. She folds her arms across her chest and shrugs, forces herself to laugh and act as natural as can be, although she’s not sure the sound comes out entirely convincing.
And Beatrix just continues to smile, something dangerous glimmering in her eyes, a toxin which Stella finds it near impossible to look away from.
Getting down proves more difficult than climbing up had been.
Stella has to go first because she’s closest, and she spends the entire time freaking out about where to put her hands and feet. Beatrix’s exasperation with her panicking doesn’t help either, as she tries to provide guidance, but ultimately only ends up making frustrated, snide comments about Stella’s lack of confidence.
“You are such a princess,” Beatrix groans on at least three separate occasions.
Stella sighs with relief when her feet finally hit solid ground. She goes as far as to bend over, pressing her palms flat against the earth to feel the comforting vibrations.
“They’ll be checking you into a hospital ward soon,” Beatrix comments, dropping down gracefully from the lowest branch.
And Stella, a little annoyed by Beatrix’s remarks when climbing down the tree, decides to commit some payback. As childish as it is, as she straightens up, she grabs a fistful of dry leaves and tosses them at Beatrix’s face.
“Whoops. My mistake,” Stella says cheerily.
She laughs loudly as shock ripples across Beatrix’s face, but the girl quickly recovers. Beatrix purses her lips and rolls back her shoulders, narrowing her eyes at Stella’s impish smile.
“You’re going to regret that,” Beatrix promises. She slowly starts walking closer, a wicked smile inching across her face. “When you were younger, did you ever play the game where you’d have to grab someone’s waist and make a buzzing noise? I think it’s called the electric shock game.”
Stella’s grin falters, and her fears are confirmed when Beatrix notices the change and grins wider, blue sparks fluttering across her fingertips.
“Obviously, I was always pretty good considering I could actually give electric shocks.” Beatrix abruptly stops, spreading her mouth wide in a parodied innocent smile. “Neat, don’t you think?”
Stella’s stomach twists in juvenile anticipation. She hasn’t felt like this since she was a little girl. The royal duties had started young, and she can’t really remember the last time she’d truly been allowed to run wild.
Stella blows air through her lips, acting casual for as long as she can. “I mean…yeah. Very neat,” she agrees. Then she smiles at her, all very nonchalant, and Beatrix smiles back, a look in her eye like she knows exactly what Stella’s about to do.
So Stella laughs, a breathy sound pushed through her lungs. She flicks her gaze up towards the sky and happens to catch the exact moment a flock of birds swarm past overhead, the black sea of wings beating as one, and it’s happenstance or perhaps fate that Beatrix glances up too, and Stella takes the opportunity to turn tails and run.
Beatrix’s shout is nothing short of delighted.
Stella runs as fast as she dares, wary of the alcohol lingering in her bloodstream. She weaves through the trees, her feet flying across the ground. The colours swirl into one, a video recording pressed on high speed: the brown dirt meshes into the red and gold leaves, the edges stained green with the evergreen ferns.
She’s laughing over the sound of her own heartbeat, thumping erratic and childishly excited. She hears Beatrix racing after her, the soft sounds of feet against leaves and the occasional snapping of rain-dampened twigs.
She bursts out into a clearing, the sun streaming down into the middle, and slows down, debating which path ahead to take.
But this proves to be her fatal mistake as a body slams into her back, and they both go flying straight at the floor. Stella thrusts her hands out in time to stop her chin smacking against the ground, but her knees hit the earth with agonising force.
The air wheezes out of Stella’s lungs, the pain in her knees shooting up through her spine and then quickly dissipating. She rolls onto her back, dazed at the sudden vertigo, sensing Beatrix’s equal disorientation to her right.
“You – asshole –” Stella wheezes through the lack of air in her lungs.
She turns to see Beatrix’s face half-frozen in shock, and the other half in hysterical glee. “I didn’t think you were going to stop.”
And it’s not an apology, not even close, but Stella suddenly finds that she doesn’t care at all. Beatrix’s eyes are light as melted chocolate, and she’s laughing in a way Stella’s never heard before, like somehow all of the ice has been sucked out of the sound like a warm glass of water on a sunny day.
Once more, Stella’s heart picks up a fast rhythm.
It’s like a movie scene: the sun shines down on the two of them like a spotlight on a stage. The ground beneath their backs is dry, but still retains that faint rain smell, the one of nature and life, the one that clings to blades of grass in dewy fields in the springtime.
Beatrix’s hair is shiny and bright; she smells like citrus and sugar. She drops her head flat on the ground, chest still shaking with laughter, tears forming in her eyes.
Stella leans up on one elbow, gazing down at her as if in a dream. She briefly wonders if she actually is dreaming, because she’s never seen or heard Beatrix so happy.
And she also wonders if she should be offended that Beatrix is this amused because she knocked her flat on her ass, but she’s not. Not even close.
Her eyes are stuck on Beatrix’s mouth, painted red and wide and happy, her teeth white and shiny behind. She feels like a moth getting sucked towards a burning meteorite.
“Stel? Are you okay?”
Only then, upon hearing Beatrix’s low concern, does she realise that it’s all gone rather quiet.
Stella’s gaze draws from Beatrix’s lips up to her eyes.
And Beatrix is a portrait in an art gallery, The Birth of Venus. Her eyes are doe-eyed and gentle; her eyelashes flutter like tiny black feathers. Colour rises into her cheeks, a fast-growing pink dye staining her skin the colour of a summer rose. Her chest is barely rising, air ceasing to flow into her lungs: she’s holding her breath.
Beatrix. Beatrix is holding her breath. And looking at her like that.
“Have you got a concussion?” Beatrix’s voice is so quiet, so soft, Stella could almost believe that she didn’t say a thing, that all she heard was a whisper on the wind.
Stella finds control of her tongue again. “No,” she whispers.
A cloud shifts overhead, and a brighter beam of sunlight falls across Beatrix’s head, her hair burning like fire, her eyes mirroring tiny specks of light, and Stella swears that she feels her heart shifting in her chest, the muscle expanding to touch the whites of her ribs.
The thing is, Stella is a princess. And, historically, when she’s wanted something, she’s had a habit of simply…getting it. That’s just how it works when you’re raised in a palace with servants and your mother is the queen of an entire kingdom.
So it’s the habit of always getting what she desires, or perhaps just the dazed, disbelieving look in Beatrix’s eyes, which makes her lean down and press a kiss to the side of Beatrix’s mouth.
When her lips touch the girl’s skin, she hears her sharply inhale, feels her pulse thrum out a drumbeat. Stella pulls away a hair’s breadth, her lips hovering over the soft skin she’d just touched.
Their eyes meet, Stella’s gaze infused with a fragile hungover confidence, whilst Beatrix’s gaze is half-lidded, drunk with anticipation.
Stella takes in a quiet breath, fills her lungs with the smell of Beatrix’s skin. Then she shifts over that last inch until their lips fit together, slotting into place like a perfect puzzle piece. Beatrix wastes no time in kissing her back: Stella feels the girl come alive all at once, the way she suddenly starts breathing again, the way her hands rise up to rest on the sides of Stella’s face, keeping her there.
Stella’s mind empties of all thought. It’s like floating, like soaring through a solstice sky. Beatrix tastes like vodka and cherry flavoured gum, her mouth warm, intoxicatingly so, and soon Stella finds herself being nudged to the side, encouraged to lie back on the floor.
Their lips break apart for a second, but only for Beatrix to get a better angle. Stella is powerless to do anything but follow the rhythm of the dance Beatrix sets, a ballerina caught on the girl’s string.
She hasn’t kissed anyone like this in a long time. Maybe never.
They kiss forever, and then they break apart. Stella’s lips are swollen and pink, her head feathery with lack of air. Her heart thunders inside her chest, exultant and fervent and wild.
Beatrix’s pupils are blown wide, a pair of flying saucers staring back at her in midday sunlight. Her lipstick is a mess, crimson smudged across her cheeks, and Stella imagines that her face must look equally ridiculous.
But Stella doesn’t laugh, and neither does Beatrix.
All they do is stare at each other, lying there in the quiet of the woods. It could’ve been years, the time they spend simply looking at each other: they breathe slowly to the same steady rhythm, an infallible symphony audible just for the two of them, content to do nothing but exist in the grace of each other’s company.